The present invention relates generally to a tip dresser for robotically controlled weld gun tips, and more particularly to a tip dresser and an alignment tool for a weld gun tip dresser.
Robotically controlled weld guns are employed to weld metal parts together, such as welding body panels together on a vehicle. Such weld guns may have a pair of robotically controlled arms, with weld gun tips on each arm that are brought together on opposite sides of the material to be welded before performing the welding operation. These weld gun tips (copper weld caps) periodically need to be dressed. Dressing involves brining the pair of weld gun tips into contact with the cutting blades in a cutter head of a tip dresser tool. The cutter head is rotated, causing the blades to dress the weld gun tips (somewhat similar to sharpening a pencil in a pencil sharpener).
It is important, when dressing the weld gun tips, to assure proper alignment of the weld gun tips with the cutter head. If the tips are not aligned properly with the cutter head during this process, bad welds can result. A tradesman, then, who tries to assure that the alignment is proper relies on visual orientation of the tips to assure the tips are aligned with the center of the cutter head. However, the contour of the blades on the cutter head make it relatively difficult for the tradesman to tell when the tips are properly centered on the cutter head. If, after dressing the tips, it turns out that the weld gun tips are not aligned with the cutter head, the tradesman must then re-teach the robot path again, and try all over again until they are correctly centered. This trial and error process can be slow and thus costly. Consequently, it is desirable to have a better method of dressing the weld gun tips for a robotically controlled weld gun.